


I'll Race You Home

by ACometAppears



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: AU, Blood, Character Death, Drowning, Gen, Gore, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Mentions of brainwashing, Suicide, Unrequited Love, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-07
Updated: 2015-02-07
Packaged: 2018-03-11 00:17:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3308552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ACometAppears/pseuds/ACometAppears
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky tries to save Steve from the Potomac. Steve doesn't make it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'll Race You Home

**Author's Note:**

> I got an AU prompt from childhoodinfamy (stebers on tumblr) that said 'Steve dies before Bucky can pull him out of the water' - so, with that in mind, consider this your final warning for major character death!! 
> 
> This one is for Kendall. I also got inspiration from 'Eet' by Regina Spektor. Hope you enjoy it uwu

It’s like forgetting the words to your favourite song. 

-

It takes a long time for human beings to drown. It’s been proven time and again – he’s proven it time and again. They clutch at his ankle, they trip him up, and he breaks them on the white tiles. They’re gone but he was sloppy. He is put back in storage. 

Everything is distorted: it was even before he dove in. The fall was a pleasant lack of grounding, to begin with: just a few seconds of utter peace, of weightlessness, and the immediate rush of falling. He thinks that he is not afraid of falling because it is easy. When he hits the water the real task will begin and he has to face it. He has to face it alone. 

His eyes don’t shut as he breaks the surface. They remain open, eyelids pulled back almost too far with the pressure – it’s nothing he’s not used to, they peel back his eyelids and show him what to think until it comes from his lips without hesitation. But only when he’s asked a question. Only when he’s permitted to talk. 

For a disorientating moment, he thinks that they might have given him this task: it’s so strong, so important, and comes like a punch from within him – he briefly thinks they must have put it there. But simultaneously, he knows this is the opposite of what they want: he was given the task of killing Captain Rogers, not plunging deep down into the murky waters and finding him to bring him out alive. This comes not from a cold, hard slab; not from a crackling, fizzing, electrical sensation – this comes from a warm, curling place, heating the base of his skull until he can’t think straight. 

_You’re real cut up, Buck._

He flinches but continues his journey downwards: he can’t see all too well, but it’s nothing he didn’t experience just a few moments ago, with Steve Rogers’ body underneath him. The warmth of his body had, in a twisted way, been somewhat pleasant – he doesn’t get close to the targets, or to his handlers, or the scientists, without their touch being cold or painful. The warmth of a body – _any body, any time_ – is unfamiliar. But still, he seeks out the other body. 

A trail of blood follows him: the warmest patches, where he made contact with Steve’s body, were the wet ones. Blood soaked from Steve’s body into his clothes, into his uniform, and now he would need a new one, if he went back. They used to throw the dirty uniforms out but now they incinerate them. He doesn’t know what DNA stands for but it’s bad and he has to always wear gloves. 

Dropping the mask was bad. But it was good, too – he let Steve see him and he let Steve close. He let Steve show him what they looked like as kids, reflected in his mind’s eye, until he was able to put his own flashes of memory into context. The funeral – _Steve’s mom_ – the train – _during the war_ – the surgery – _his arm_. Steve’s eyes were small, and insignificant, at least at first. But they showed him everything he needed to know. 

_Me? You should see yourself, Stevie. Don’t you ever do that again._

The further down he plunges, the darker it gets: the shadows, barely penetrated by the sunbeams and the light from the explosions, consume him. Not even stasis is dark like this. 

He cannot see Steve: he blinks, and blinks again, and wonders if he imagined him. That thought makes him slow to a stop, for just a moment: blood from his own face trickles out into the water around him, the red tendrils catching his eye for a few seconds. He’s too heavy, with his arm, to start floating upwards. He’s pulled down, like hell wants to claim him once more. He’s seen enough of freedom; enough of what his life could have been – what it could be – and enough of Steve. He’s being pulled back down. He looked back and now he is doomed. 

He still can’t see Steve: his vision is perfect; 20/20, they made sure. They never explained what they were doing when they tied him down and forced his eyes open; never explained the needles he could see coming right for his eyes, or the surgeons’ muttering in a language he was too panicked to identify or interpret. But, looking back on it, it was probably some sort of laser eye surgery. It happened three times. His vision hasn’t slipped, since the last time. He doesn’t know when that was, but Pierce was younger, then; he observed, still, and he was in his prime. Much younger and blonder. 

He stays still long enough that he spots Steve’s hair, shining in the meagre light, somewhere below him. 

_I’m not always gonna be there to bail you out._

He doesn’t know where he learned to swim, but he’s thankful: he doesn’t remember pulling Steve up out of the river, when he fell in trying to reach one of his errant sketchbooks. He doesn’t remember yelling at him until he was blue in the face, while he was still panting with his hands on his knees, worn out from swimming against the current. He doesn’t remember thinking that if anything ever happened to Steve, it would kill him. He doesn’t remember that being the moment that he realised he loved Steve Rogers. 

But, even now, as he darts forward, one useless arm tucked in to his chest to prevent resistance, that feeling remains: a desperation to care for Steve, and to save his life. The realisation that he cares about him too much – the horror that he feels at loving something they could take away; the panic that comes with being compromised. He doesn’t know what to do. Other than save Steve.

_I don’t need you to._

His mouth hangs open, as he arrives in front of Steve’s body: blood is flowing freely from his face, and from the wound to his gut; it’s dark, a putrid colour, and Steve is clearly in desperate need of medical attention. He thinks that Steve doesn’t have enough iron in his blood. He doesn’t know if that’s true anymore, but even if it isn’t – even if this is Captain America, and he’s the asset, and _he needs to destroy Captain Rogers, that’s his only mission, his only goal, or – or, those whispers about decommissioning him – those itchy trigger fingers and predatory eyes-_

He shakes himself, the tightness in his chest nothing to do with his lack of oxygen . . . He needs to get Steve out and to safety. He doesn’t know if the metallic taste on his tongue is his own blood, or Steve’s. 

He grabs Steve by the front of his uniform and starts his ascension quickly, not wanting to waste any more time on breakdowns, and hallucinations, or considering his failures as an asset, and as a friend. He’s nothing and no one. He’s even less if he cannot save Steve. 

He can barely see the sunlight from this deep: as he pulls Steve upwards, he stares up, and mentally calculates which way would be quickest to shore. He glances back very briefly: he watches as Steve’s head lolls back awkwardly as he’s pulled along. He sharply looks away, not wanting to consider the implications of what he just saw. There is no way his eyes are functioning at one hundred percent capacity right now. 

Where the shoulder part of his prosthesis attaches to his shoulder blade and collarbone, it pulls: the weight of Steve’s body, being pulled against water resistance, is enough to make the skin war with the metal, threatening to rip them apart, if the scar tissue doesn’t hold. He grits his teeth, his other arm still pulled to his body, and kicks his legs furiously, though they burn, and he’s running out of air. It doesn’t matter what he’s feeling. He needs Steve to be okay because he cannot have killed Steve, and he cannot have let Steve fall, and a fall from that high into water cannot have broken Steve. _Steve is Captain America now and he cannot be killed by a broken neck or a broken spine or a shattered skull or a bullet to the gut or-_

There is no way that Steve Rogers’ best friend – the man who loves him, and is _sorry, so sorry, he didn’t mean it, he forgot and he is sorry_ – has achieved what Nazis could not. There is no way a friend could do this. Perhaps he is not Steve’s friend. Perhaps Steve lied. 

He didn’t do this. He can’t have done this. 

_Sure you don’t._

He surfaces, and takes a huge breath: he wastes no time in pulling up Steve’s head, above the water, his own palm pressed to Steve’s chest. He cannot tell, with the water that buffets them, whether Steve’s chest is moving, even gently. He needs to get to shore. 

The journey to shore takes longer than he wants. Steve’s body is limper than he wants. He’s lost more blood than he wants. Nothing is turning out the way he wants. Nothing that’s happening is anything he can understand, or anything he was designed for; anything he can remember being trained for. He knows what to do now he has one arm, but he doesn’t know what to do at the prospect of losing another substantial part of himself; a part always there, at the back of his mind, making him angry, and frightened, and _sorry_. But mainly, making him love. Making him love, somewhere deep down beneath the stitches and the scar tissue and the lacerations that pepper his mind like blood spatter. Even when they didn’t allow it. 

He drags Steve onto the shore. It’s the quickest way. 

He sets him down, eyes wide and hair sopping wet, strands sticking to his face and wetting Steve’s face further. He doesn’t let his gaze stray from Steve’s face, even for a second; not even to check his wounds, not even to monitor both of his upper limbs. They come second. He comes second. Everything comes second to this moment. 

He holds his breath. Steve doesn’t breathe and neither does he. Steve doesn’t breathe. 

_I mean it, Buck._

He reaches out, and presses on Steve’s chest as hard as he can. Water comes out of Steve’s mouth but his skin is pale and verging on blue; cyanotic. When his chest moves, his head lolls away from Bucky, moving until it rests facing away from him at an unnatural angle. 

Bucky is absolutely frozen, for a few long moments, his fear and panic and _terror_ consuming him. He remembers giving Steve mouth-to-mouth before. He remembers pressing his warm lips to Steve’s cold, wet ones – he remembers him sputtering to life, and pushing at Bucky’s chest, and complaining way too much. 

Steve doesn’t sputter this time. Bucky kneels beside Steve’s body, tilting Steve’s head towards him. He cannot take his pulse with his prosthesis but he knows it’s over. 

It’s over. 

It cannot be over. That isn’t how this went, and it’s not how it goes, and he won’t let it happen this time. 

He tries mouth-to-mouth. Steve’s chest rises, but his lips are pasty, and bloodless, and his head can’t stay in one position because his neck is broken and he is gone. 

He can’t stop staring at Steve’s face. He holds it in place, until the moment he decides to let go. That doesn’t come for several hours: it’s dark, and the sky is still full of smoke, but the sirens have died down. Things are quieter and his mind is playing static, interspersed with the few memories he has earned back. He doesn’t feel worthy of them, so he mainly forces himself to be still, and quiet, and thoughtless. He won’t look away from Steve’s face, even when it is obscured by darkness, though. 

This is what was owed to him: for the sin of loving Steve; for loving someone who was always fragile, and ill, but with the heart of a lion and courage the likes of which Bucky could never pretend to possess. He’d be lucky to have a tenth of Steve’s bravery. 

This is what he gets for dying on Steve. This is what he gets for betraying him – and he did betray him, because Steve would have never let what happened to Bucky happen to him, _not ever, he’d die first, no doubt about it. He’d die a hero._

This is what he gets for not realising Steve was his friend until the last second. This is what he gets for letting Steve fall, like that, hitting the water and going limp like a rag doll. 

This is what he deserves. He knows that, and he’s learned his lesson. There’s no one he can turn to, now – no one he can face, and no one he could stand confessing what happened here to. Just Steve. 

So when they come, he makes a sudden move, pretending to go for a gun, and it’s over. A bullet to the base of his skull – and all the warmth he felt there, brought about by the memories of Steve blinking with one eye, Steve smirking with one side of his lips, Steve’s eyes flashing in the light of explosions – all of it, gone. 

The story is the same as always: he fought. He tried to save Steve; he tried to stay alive for him, and stay with him, til the end. But this time there’s a different ending. 

_I know. Come on – I’ll race you home. Maybe you’ll get there first, this time._

-

It’s like forgetting the words to your favourite song.


End file.
